What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn started from humble beginnings in the living room of co-founder Reid Hoffman in 2002 and was officially launched on 5th May 2003.
It is now the world’s largest professional network on the Internet. Their mission is a simple one: to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.
“LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 175 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.”
In very simple terms, think of it as your online CV, but with the ability to link with business contacts.
Getting started on LinkedIn is incredibly simple – all you need to do is set up an individual profile page and then away you go.
Benefits of using LinkedIn
There are many different benefits of using LinkedIn, here are just a few reasons why you should be using it for your Hotel.
Building your Professional Network – Linked provides an opportunity to grow your network allowing you to visit a potential connections profile, displaying the degree(s) of separation between you and the connection. Using LinkedIn as a networking tool, you can see your mutual connections with third parties. This can assist you in making an introduction to an important supplier, distributor, strategic partners or future employees.
Increase Exposure of Products and Services – Having your products and services on your page will increase exposure for your hotel because there is one more location on the web where potential suppliers, employees, and distributors can find out about your product or service. Also your hotel page will show up in a Google search. Additionally, listing your company will vastly improve traffic to your website by allowing you to place a link to your site on your profile or company page.
Increase Credibility and Attract New Business – LinkedIn offers a great opportunity to receive recommendations from past employees, clients, etc. By requesting recommendations from individuals with whom you have done business, you can increase your credibility with potential business connections. LinkedIn members can also follow companies which keeps them up to date with important company information.
Company Pages
Having a company page allows people to search for your company’s expertise and learn more about what you do. Check out Fine Individual Hotels Page
LinkedIn have recently added the element of status updates to the company pages, which allows you to share the latest news, blogs or relevant info to all your followers.
Setting up a company page for your Hotel is just as simple as a personal profile. Here are our top tips to make sure people can find you.
– Add Hotel info into the description section. Make sure it is in line with your website, and remember add details of what your hotel offer.
– Add keywords to the specialties section. You are allowed to use 256 characters here so add all the words that will help your hotel be found
– Pick the most appropriate industry. This could be used in a search to find your company – For this case it will be hospitality
– Add details of your location. This is another filter other people use to search by. LinkedIn let you add up to five different locations.
– Add details of all your products and services. If you have pictures and videos for them, add these too
– Link your blog’s RSS feed to your profile so people can see your latest blog post and share, comment and like it
– Post regular updates on your page. For instance, you can add links back to your website and blog
– Interact with your connections and other posts that you like or can relate to.
Groups
The purpose of LinkedIn Groups is to allow those with similar interests to come together to discuss and share news on the topics that mutually interest them. So set one up or join the Fine Individual Hotels Group – just search for us in the groups.
Groups are a great opportunity to get people talking about your products, services and your company. LinkedIn Groups provides a discussion board, where it is possible to post a link to a web article of interest or simply engage in a conversation.
Basically, by attracting your target demographic to your group, you can directly engage with them regardless of your connectivity status.
The one thing you need to get started with a group is a name, but you don’t use your company name. You want to attract your target audience to your group and not just sell them your products and services.
The next step is to promote your group, introduce your group to your network and start discussions. You can use all the other social media channels to complete this. Send out the odd tweet or Facebook post inviting people to join in. Adding a link to your company page and group on your own website is a great idea.
One thing to remember is not to bombard your followers and connections with sales pitches and updates all about yourself. Vary your updates with relevant articles, content from other group members and information about you.
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